


Daughter of the Shire

by hiddencait



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Black Jewels Fusion, Black Jewels Protocol shenanigans, Black Jewels typical trigger warnings, Dark Fantasy, F/M, Female!Bilbo, Hobbit Culture & Customs, Hobbit and Dwarrow Misunderstanding, MOAR LADIES IN THE COMPANY, because reasons, complicated relationships because a Queen's Court tends to be complicated, isn't that just canon tho? LOL, lots of Middle Earth characters showing up, not naming all of them because that list will get realllllllllly long
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24931570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: When Smaug the guardian of the Lonely Mountain succumbs to old age, the Dwarrow folk are forced to seek out the Hobbits, in the hopes of finding a Queen to heal the dragon death-ravaged Erebor among the many born to the fertile Shire.All but traded away by the Queens Council in exchange for a company of Dwarven warriors for the Shire's protection, birthright Green Jeweled Healer Queen Blackberry Baggins begrudgingly 'volunteers' to journey across Middle Earth to gather a Court of her own, no matter how aggravating she finds the Sapphire Jeweled Warlord Prince sent to escort her.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins & Belladonna Took, Bilbo Baggins & Dís, Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 20
Kudos: 62





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grav_ity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/gifts).



> So I discussed this concept with grav_ity back in oh... 2014? and i'm only just getting around to posting anything for it *headdesk* I actually had about 2500 words written way back when, but I'm essentially rewriting it from scratch, so hopefully it will be much better this time around. 
> 
> This is one of the series that I've been the most excited about but also the most intimidated by as there is a good chance this will end up one of my longest fics (as well as a series if I can't resist the full plot bunny because Yavanna knows I need another WIP to neglect LOLOLOL). But I love Black Jewels AUs so so much, and there's so many fun things that I can do with that concept in The Hobbit verse. So I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do. 
> 
> Also just FYI - most of the Archive Warnings will take place either off screen or in the past (again these are pretty typical considering how dark the Black Jewels series was LOL), but I will try to remember to place specific trigger warnings on the chapters when any of those things occur.
> 
> NOTE: since someone mentioned it, the castes and Jewels are from Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy. I've added a quick primer with help from the wiki in the end notes.

**Prologue: Regarding a Red Jeweled Black Widow Born to the Shire**

Some say it is a blessing of Yavanna that Hobbits are by nature bound to the earth, and thus more grounded and rather less tumultuous in their desires than the rest of the longer lived races. Landen and Blood live side by side with little strife between them, and the quarrels and challenges between the courts of various Shire Queens manifest more as snide gossip or the occasional merchant boycott than in anything as improper as bloodshed.

Protocol is, of course, of the utmost importance, but for Hobbits, it is more a matter of _manners_ than of negotiation between the sexes. The Princes and Warlords of Buckland or Hobbiton can hardly be expected to rise to the killing edge over a crop dispute or a snub at a dinner party, after all.

And the Warlord Princes, fierce and savage and spoken of with such caution by Men and Dwarves? Well, they’ve not been born to the Shire in many a year, and indeed, most proper Hobbits consider such males a myth. Or at the very least, dreadfully unseemly.

Healers, on the other hand, are born so often as to be plentiful, and the Shire itself grows rich and verdant with a surfeit of Queens to tend it. Most Hobbits think it a sign of their own superiority that those most precious of caste are so often born to their people. That those Queens are perhaps less guarded than they should be is hardly a consideration for most of the Shire folk. They are safe and secure within the Shire borders, and if that was not always so, most have chosen to forget such histories.

These are uncomfortable truths, after all, and Hobbits care for nothing so much as comfort, and some clans even more so than others.

Those mysterious creatures known as Black Widows are almost as rare as Warlord Princes, and nearly as feared.

It was that same fear that might have meant one Belladonna of the Tooks – bearer of a Red Jewel – would have found herself driven from the Shire by sharp words and vicious disapproval, but then, the Tooks have ever been… _uncanny_ in the eyes of the rest of Hobbit kind. Adventurers and dreamers all, the Took clan boasts that almost all Black Widows born to the Shire came from their lineage. This does not mean they precisely understand these rare daughters – and even rarer sons – but they do at least cherish them instead of reviling them.

Belladonna still finds herself something of a cypher amongst her clan, even for one of her kind. She is sly and lit with an inner need to seek out knowledge and wisdom, and so, _so_ bold in her pursuit of either. Her mystery is all there in her name, for those who care to listen. Hobbits take care with the naming of their lasses, no matter the caste, but that of a Black Widow takes even more consideration. Visions, her name speaks of, and travel across the planes of existence. And so too, does it speak of illusion and poison, each as deadly as the other. Most Hobbit courts outside of the Took clan take care to avoid her, as much for the sting of her sharp tongue as for the danger lurking beneath the ring finger of her right hand.

Sadly, there is only so much of such avoidance that a young lass can tolerate – even a Black Widow lass, and, in time, Belladonna ventured farther and farther beyond her Shire homeland, seeking out other courts and races where she might serve with greater welcome or at least tolerance than granted to her by Hobbit kind.

It is while in the company of the elves of the Rivendell court that Belladonna first learns of a growing danger to the Shire’s Queens, of the hordes of males of the race of Orcs. Males driven mad by the sacrifice of their own Queens to the Dark Priest Sauron. Males sent ravaging through Middle Earth breaking any Blood they come across, and viciously murdering any Queen they can find. Accompanied – and guarded though she tells the Princes towering over her that she hardly needs such guarding – by those same elves, Belladonna journeys back to the Shire to warn the Council of Shire Queens of the danger to their clans, a danger growing closer year by year.

The Queens politely – as one should never be so foolish has to be impolite to a Black Widow no matter how improper the existence of such a caste may be – thank her for her concern, and then send her and her escorts on their merry way.

Only Belladonna’s own mother, the old dowager Queen Marjoram of the Tooks, gives any credence to her daughter’s claims, but even her aged wisdom can do little to sway the minds of the younger Queens in the Council seats.

Belladonna can do naught about their disregard, save for making a vow that she and her allies shall keep watch as the years pass in hopes of finding a solution to her people’s lack of protection before the Orcs, currently busying themselves with the lands of Men, finally turn their eyes to the Shire.

Until then, though, she weaves her Tangled Webs and goes about the business of merely living a life. With her mother’s blessing and that of Queen Comfrey of the Baggins – a queen also deemed long past her prime by the Council but who is no less observant than Queen Marjoram in her advanced age, Belladonna marries the Baggins boy who’s been so intrigued by her since they were mere faunts. Only a gentle Blood Warlord, Bungo isn’t the warrior and hero she’d once dreamed of wedding, but he loves her as fiercely as his natures allows, and in time, that is enough.

Together, she and her husband withdraw from the courts that have so long rejected her and settle down in the lovely smial built by Bungo’s own hands at the border between the Took and Baggins territories. There, with her devoted husband to support her, Belladonna keeps watch over the Shire as best she can, warning her mother and mother-in-law when solitary orcs draw near enough to threaten their clans.

The Shire is safe, for a time, but her Tangled Webs assure her that safety shall not last.

Thus, the Black Widow lives her life and waits for the day the Shire and its neighbors will no longer know peace. She waits for the day she will accompany her daughter – a Birthright Green Jeweled Healer Queen – on an oh-so-expected journey to reawaken a distant mountain and rule a Court few Hobbits would deem proper to even dream of.

What would become of the Shire after her daughter’s departure would no longer be a concern of Belladonna’s.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which a Council of Queens Makes a Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey this only took...oh... 4 months? *hides* Hey it's 2020. What else can I say? On the upside, this is one of the projects I'm focusing on for my NaNoWriMo rebellion this year, so I hopefully will have the next chapter up soonish, especially as I still have a little left of my previous attempt that I can work into the next chapter so it won't be quite as much writing from scratch. As always - I hope you all enjoy!

**Chapter One: In Which a Council of Queens Makes a Decision**

“-so as was explained in the letters preceding our arrival, we hope the Blood of Erebor and that of the Shire can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement in order to protect your homes from the orc threat that is growing throughout Middle Earth, as well provide our Territory with the Queen it so desperately needs in the wake of the devastation created by the loss of our draconic guardian, Smaug,” concluded the leader of the Dwarrow delegation, a Sapphire jeweled Priestess who had introduced herself as Lady Dis at the opening of the discussion between their delegation and the Shire Queens Council.

It wasn’t that Blackberry Baggins disagreed with the discussion at hand as such; it was more that she knew calling it a “discussion” was so much fiction. The Queens Council was less a council than a collection of gossiping Queens on occasion, and Mother Night knew this was one of those particular occasions for certain. They’d long since “discussed” the Dwarrows’ proposal backwards and forwards, and Berry knew well enough that they’d already come to a decision. Or… well… _Lobelia_ had come to a decision and then proceeded to badger and nag the other Queens into agreeing with her.

The Dwarrow delegation shifted in their seats as Queen Lobelia Sackville-Baggins began to speak and her voice hit that particular mix of condescension and saccharine sweetness that always set Berry’s teeth on edge. “We do understand the … limitations of your people, and we are willing, of course, to help you in exchange for the discussed garrison. Truly we are, but you can understand how we’d hesitate to send just any of our Queens with you. We have to consider carefully just who would be the … _best_ candidate.”

Berry exchanged a glance with her mother, trying not to let her distaste for the current Baggins family representative on the Council show on her face. She wondered again just what it was that had drawn so many males to Lobelia’s Court. It wasn’t like it wasn’t common knowledge just how vicious a bitch she was, after all. It rankled to see her sitting in the chair that Berry’s grandmother had held for so long, especially considering she was only a Baggins by right of marriage to her wretched consort Otho, who was himself only from the Sackville-Baggins cadet branch of the family.

But it was the Queen with the largest Court in each family that held the Council seat, and Berry… Healer Queen that she was, Berry might once have been expected to grow up to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps, but without a complete First Circle – or even the barest triangle of Steward, Master of the Guard, and Escort (she’d long known better than to hope for a Consort) – there was no chance of her holding even the least seat on the Council.

A fact which Lobelia loved lording over her cousin by marriage and said cousin’s unnatural Black Widow mother.

If not for the future revealed long ago in one of Belladonna’s Tangled Webs, Berry didn’t think she would have been able to stand the derision Lobelia spat in her face or the distrust the community aimed at a Black Widow and her uncanny Healer Queen daughter without a Court of any kind.

But that future _was_ real, Berry reminded herself as Lobelia prattled on in apparently ignorance of just how terribly she was insulting the Dwarrow delegation with every breath. It was real; the delegation itself proved it. She just had to hold onto her composure as best she could and hope that future might actually grant her some semblance of the happiness she’d all but given up finding in the Shire as one local Blood male after another turned away from her possible Court to choose another Queen to follow. Or another. Or another. Or one from the next town over or the next or another Shire District entirely.

One by one the local Queens all gathered the starts of their own Courts: some only a triangle or the minimum Twelve for a proper First Circle, but a few, like Lobelia damn her eyes, gathering solid Courts of Blood with multiple circles. That of course, was so much rarer – the surfeit of Queens born to Hobbit kind mean there were more Courts to fill, and there were only so many Blood males to go around after all. A few had been rather radical and formed a First Circle around them comprised solely of Blood females and non-binary Blooded folk – though few of those often dared to admit to such a tactic with how conservative the Shire Courts could be.

But not Berry. For some reason, the available Blood decided her potential Court was not for them. Berry suspected their decisions were likely linked to certain… rumors – and rumormongers including Lobelia of course – about her mental state given her mother’s history and the conflicting Baggins and Took influences. Whatever the reason, she stood alone as no Queen ever should, let alone one with a rare and precious dual caste.

But she might not be alone any longer, she reminded herself as Lobelia finally seemed to be slowing her grandstanding. It was almost time for the big reveal – the one Lobelia surely thought would come as a terrible shock to Berry.

If only she knew.

“And so, after long thoughtful deliberation, we believe we have an answer for you,” Lobelia said, her smile turning sharp at the edges.

The Lady Dis appeared utterly unimpressed. “And are you going to ever get to that answer or will we be subjected to more of you speaking to enjoy the sound of your voice for another hour?” Her returning smile was just as cutting beneath her silky black beard. “I had heard that the Shire ran on a more _casual_ timeline for one of the shorter lived races, but some of us do have places to be, you know.”

Berry choked back a laugh only with the aid of her mother’s elbow to her ribs, and she hurriedly ducked her head to hide her smile behind the wisps of hair escaping from proper chignon to fall around her face. She thought she could like these Dwarrow folk; that was a good sign at least. Or so she hoped.

From her central seat behind the Council table, Lobelia sputtered for a moment with fury before she regained her composure and her smile. “Well, it seems our choice is even more appropriate, given _your_ manners.” She turned and pointed imperiously directly at Berry, just as Belladonna’s Tangled Web had shown she would so many years ago. “There. There’s your precious little Queen. Blackberry Baggins. We couldn’t send a whole Court after all, not to such an uncivilized place like the Lonely Mountain. But she’s hardly got a Court now does she? So there you are – a Courtless Healer Queen, ripe for the picking so to speak. Though I warn you: she’s prickly. It’s all right there in her name. _If_ you know how to read it.”

She sneered and gestured for Berry to rise. “Well come on, _cousin._ Won’t you introduce yourself to these _fine_ Dwarrow folk? You’ll be going with them, after all.”

The Dwarrows were grumbling again, and this time even the Council couldn’t ignore the offended tone to those grumbles. With a deep breath and a soothing squeeze of her hand by her mother, Berry rose with as much grace and poise as she could muster after years of lessons with the former matriarchs of both her parents’ families. “Lady Dis and all of your escort, I am Blackberry Baggins, Healer Queen and granddaughter of Queen Marjoram Took and Queen Comfrey Baggins. I am glad to meet you at last.”

Berry raised her eyes to meet Lobelia’s, then smiled long and slow, in the way she had learned from her mother, and savored the other Queen’s confusion in the face of Berry’s lack of surprise or dismay. “My mother saw you coming, you see, in a Tangled Web spun before I was born.” After watching the horrified understanding dawn on Lobelia’s face, she turned away in a clear dismissal of the other woman to face the Dwarrow delegation. “As those great Queens’ granddaughter, I have been raised for this moment for as long as I can remember. I will be honored to journey with you all, and I can only hope I will be the Queen you all wish for.”

Lady Dis had risen in reply, and she studied Berry with a considering glance that held an almost physical weight. “You know, I really think you might be.”

She grinned and gestured for the rest of the delegation to join her in standing, then as one – in a move that stunned Berry every bit as much as it did the Queens Council – every Dwarrow bowed deeply in their new Queen’s direction. After a beat, Lady Dis rose and, without bothering to face the Council again, she waved to two of her fellows to come forward. “Thank you all for your oh so gracious consideration of our request. Prince Balin and Warlord Prince Dwalin will remain behind to provide the details for the garrison’s arrival. My Queen, would you and your mother care to join us?”

Without waiting for a response from any of the Hobbits, she turned away and briskly ushered both Baggins women out of the Council Hall and out into the sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> (Note: one of the unfortunate failings of the Black Jewels books is that it is very "male and female" which... for those of us who are queer, it's very limited and doesn't consider gender - only sex. I'm going to be playing with queering it up/adding trans folk as I can work it in a way that makes sense with the world building I'm already dealing with. But trans readers I see you, I love you, you will only make this verse that much better.)
> 
> As per the wiki: 
> 
> Castes:  
> Blood society is stratified into several different castes. Along with social rank and Jewel strength, caste is part of the triangle that governs the social hierarchy of the blood. Caste is not a strict linear hierarchy, especially when it comes to Blood females.
> 
> Landen   
> Landen is the term for the non-Blood of every race.
> 
> Blood  
> "Blood female" and "Blood male" are terms used both to refer to Blood of any caste, as well as any member of the Blood who does not wear a Jewel.
> 
> Female-specific castes  
> witch: both a general term for any Jeweled female and also specifically refers to Jeweled females who don't belong to any of the other castes.  
> Healer: a witch who specializes in healing physical wounds and illnesses. Equal in rank to a Priestess and a Prince.  
> Priestess: a witch who cares for altars, Sanctuaries and Dark Altars, witnesses handfasts and marriages, and performs offerings. Equal in rank to a Healer and a Prince.  
> Black Widow: a witch who heals the mind, weaves the tangled webs of dreams and visions, and is trained in illusions and poisons. Equal in status to a Warlord Prince.  
> Queen: a witch who rules the Blood. Queens are considered to be the land's heart and moral center, as such she is the focal point of Blood society.
> 
> Male-specific castes   
> Warlord: a Jeweled male equal in status to a witch.  
> Prince: a Jeweled male equal in status to a Priestess or Healer.  
> Warlord Prince: a dangerous, extremely aggressive Jeweled male; slightly lower in status than a Queen.
> 
> Jewels:   
> Jewels are the outward representation of the power wielded by members of the Blood. They range from White to Black, with the darker Jewels being more powerful. Opal is considered the dividing line between the light and dark Jewels as it can be either. The Jewels act as a container for the reservoir of power possessed by the Blood, whose bodies cannot maintain holding their full strength at all times. Not all members of the Blood possess enough psychic power to wear the Jewels, however, they are still capable of basic Craft. Clear Jewels exist, but do not have a place in the ranks. These Jewels act as beacons for those who ride the Winds, and as such are placed in landing webs. This is the only use that has ever been found for them. Not all the Blood are strong enough to receive Jewels, but those who are acquire them during the Birthright Ceremony. A person receives their second Jewel when making the Offering to the Darkness, allowing them to descend to their mature strength. The new Jewel may be up to three ranks darker than the original. Even a person with no Birthright Jewel may receive a Jewel during the Offering, although in that case they are unlikely to descend further than the Yellow. It is also possible for emotional trauma or other traumatic experiences preventing a person from descending to their full potential strength. As the Offering can only be made once, it is thus impossible for such a person to ever possess the entirety of the power they were capable of wielding.
> 
> Jewel ranks:   
> White  
> Yellow  
> Tiger Eye  
> Rose  
> Summer-sky  
> Purple Dusk  
> Opal  
> Green  
> Sapphire  
> Red  
> Gray  
> Ebon-gray  
> Black  
> Opal is the dividing line between the light and dark jewels because it can be either. The darker form of an Opal Jewel is known as the Blood Opal.


End file.
